Protect your Memories - Part 1: Preparation

This article the first of a sequence published in Caribberan Compass that describes simple methods of protecting the information on your on-board computer against loss, theft or damage. This Part 1 discusses the use of simple, inexpensive hard disk drives for data storage and explains how to set up the hardware for such a system.

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Protect your Memories - Part 2: Backing Up Your Data

This article the second of a sequence published in Caribberan Compass that describes simple methods of protecting the information on your on-board computer against loss, theft or damage. Part 2 t discusses the actual methods you can use to save your data on a hard disk drive external to your computer that is then stored in a safe location.

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Robocopy

Robocopy exists natively in Vista and Windows 7. However, to obtain Robocopy for use in Windows XP, you will need the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools, the kit coming as a single package downloadable from Microsoft. Unfortunately Robocopy can only be obtained as part of this larger package which will install a number of other tools at the same time. The download site is:

         http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

which you can go to by clicking on this link, or cutting and pasting this url into your web browser.

Once downloading,  follow the simple instructions for installing the resource kit. Once installed, Robocopy can then be used as a line instruction in a command window.

Back-up Batch File

Example text for backing up your data:  Back-up Text File.

Select this link to copy the text then cut and paste the text into a text-file on your desktop and save this file. Modify this file to suit your specific purpose then change the file extention to "bat" rather than text. Following this rename, you must edit rather than open to make further changes.